Sick day, part 2

The frustration of knowing you have eaten 1300 calories a day average for the last 4 months, and you put on 4 lbs in two days.

It's not weight gained for real, of course. It's bloat. And it makes you feel achy. And crabby. And all those pmsy symptoms that make me feel like a walking Midol commercial.

Of course, being just a few days from turning 50, I have no idea if its a TOM event or something else is triggering it.

I don't like to be a gripey puss, either, but I have been one.

Still working on a webpage overhaul. I've been getting to indulge in playing with graphics, which I'm not actually great at because I've done most of mine using cheap freebee editors instead of the more elaborate ones, but I really enjoy doing playing with them. In my search for images, I found this pic - a victorian painting which I forgot the name of, but looks kind of transitional between things like the pre-Raphaelites and the Art Nouveau movement. More Art Nouveau, I think but a bit more realistic. Maybe I love it because it matches my mood right now!

Anyway, my dear hubby got dressed this morning like it was 1795, in broadfall pants, a linen shirt, and a linen overshirt, and went off to a meeting with our reenactment club. We're getting ready to have our big event over Labor Day weekend, and I know my reenactment clothes won't fit me any more. This means I will have to redo or remake my period skirts, and you can forget about corsetry. I wouldn't dream of making another corset until my weight stabilizes.

Last year, it rained on us the entire day we went out, until sunset, when our club had it's potluck dinner. The event takes place at Fort Bridger, Wyoming, and it can get fairly cool there in September, particularly when it rains. Here is a pic of me and hubby, slightly ragged with a blanket wrapped around my waist, and me about 4o-45 lbs heavier than I am now. Hubby looks really good in a cocked hat. Shame its too far off the norm to wear it on a regular basis!

Sick Day....

Weekly weigh-in postponed. Woke up 2 lbs heavier than the day before, achy, tummy problems, and the beginnings of a UTI. Not a time to worry about the fine points of dieting.

So what do you do when this happens? Me, I write down in my food journal: Sick Day, count my calories, but don't worry about the totals. I try to listen to what my body is telling me. Today, I just feel ragged out. It's not fair to get sick to your stomach when you need to be drinking cranberry juice! I'm hoping to get some extra rest, too. Passed on doing my volunteer work.

All week long I've been yoyoing with fluid retention. Up two pounds one day, down two pounds the next. Not fun, especially as they make my hands feel stiff. I guess I've been building up to something.

But on a nice note, Teen got his first paycheck yesterday. I am not telling him how to spend it. When the court case gets heard for his tickets, he will be expected to pay the fine himself, and I won't dip into some money he has reserved for him for emergencies to pay it. I will let him deal with it - and it's common here for a judge to require kids old enough to work to pay for their fines themselves.

I'm actually proud that he's managed to hold on to his job for three weeks. I didn't know for sure if he could handle it for a week. Doing better than I thought!

Didn't write anything yesterday....

I've gotten busy.

I've started doing volunteer work at a library, three days a week for about 12-15 hours a week. I like it.

I'm doing a major overhaul of my webpages. I spent all day yesterday playing around with creating graphics. This one which should have been easy took too long:

But then, I didn't know what I wanted when I started.

My son, both sweet and sassy, is dealing with the stress of having to put up with the boyfriend of his ex-almost girlfriend telling tales about him that he says aren't true. And I believe him. (However they classify such things among themselves nowadays is a sheer mystery to me - but in all major ways to old folks like me this was his girlfriend). Mostly though, I think he's mad at the girl, and dealing with her choosing someone he thinks is so much lower down the social scale than he is.

My diet goes on, but I seem, finally to be plateauing. YUCK!!! This point, getting across the 200 barrier has always been a hard job for me, and I seem to have a natural pause point here. Time to examine diet and supplement and workouts, but at least I can rest in the knowledge that I'm not off the food discipline. Nice thing about documenting it. I don't have to feel insecure. I know if I keep on keeping on, I will do fine.

Sometimes I wonder....

Sometimes I wonder about how I got through my adolescence and still my parents didn't disown me.

There are days when my teen pulls a stunt (like staying out all night and not coming home to five in the afternoon) that I know how much I put my parents through, and I wonder at their ability to resist the temptation to asking me to move out.

This morning, I don't know if I'll have the same ability. I'm ticked off that he got mad that I was upset that it was so late when he came home because I was worried about him - and ticked off because he promised he would be home.

I've been told that some of this behavior is due to the fact that he is pushing those close to him away so he won't be hurt like when his birth mom and sister died. It's rough being pushed against.

Thinking about the fall

My husband likes to go hunting in the fall. Mostly we go for ducks and also go grouse hunting, and I like to go with him some of the time.

One of the things that has happened is since I have lost so much weight, my old hunting jackets and waders don't fit me any more. My all-weather Columbia camo coat was a men's 3x. My heavy wool vest is going to swallow me up. Yesterday, we went trying on new coats and lo and behold, I can wear a man's L. It's a little snug across the tummy, especially if I were putting it over waders, but wow. That is quite a reduction.

See the pic of a heftier me looking over the marsh from a viewing station.

If you wear things like waders or bib overalls, and the inseam is too long, it can make it really difficult to walk, especially through marshy land. I had that problem last year and went out and got bigger, but shorter waders. Won't even be able to wear them this year.
Picture of Salt Creek Marsh in early winter after the ice has started...a stark and beautiful place.

Maybe I'll just pass on the duck hunting, and concetrate on the grouse. We have quite a hike up a mountain trail (1000 feet up and about 2.5 miles in) to get to where we find them. I have loved hiking up this trail, but its physically been very demanding when I was weighing over 240. I'm looking forward to how it feels to be hiking up that path come this fall, when I will be weighing so much less.

I don't really care if we get any - for me it's an excuse to get up in the mountains as the leaves are turning, the aspenis golden and the weather is fine. And there's this wonderful view of the mountains you can't see from down in the valley... spectacular payoff for a long, sometimes hot pull.



But now the pressing question (unusual for hunting season) will be - whatever shall I wear?